He paused, but the people made no demonstration.
“Repent, O daughter of Zanah!” the Herr Doktor shouted, in a voice intended to terrify all who heard it. “Repent now. Pledge thyself to put earthly love out of thy heart, and to serve the Lord forever.”
“Love that hath taken root in the heart cannot be plucked out at will. This love must remain always with me,” Walda replied.
“Let thy shame be upon thine own head,” shouted Adolph Schneider. “Thou art a woman possessed of Satan. Thou hast caused thy father’s death, and yet thou darest to defy the laws of God and the laws of Zanah.”
“She hath committed murder,” cried a woman. “The mark of Cain is set upon her forehead.”
The colonists surged around the place where Walda and Gerson Brandt stood. Straining at his bonds, Everett, who had been dragged back upon the platform and thrown before the vacant chair of the prophetess, shouted to the elders to preserve order. Seeing Walda’s peril, he demanded that he be released, and poured forth such a torrent of invective and entreaty that Adolph Schneider and Karl Weisel were moved to action. The two elders tried in vain to obtain a hearing. The crowd was clamoring for revenge. Infuriated by disappointment and goaded by superstition, the colonists pressed so closely upon Walda that she was in danger of being crushed.
Some of the women would have spat upon her, but Gerson Brandt pushed them away. Terrible in his anger, he widened the circle around the white-clad figure of the fallen prophetess, who seemed unmindful of the turmoil about her. She stood with bowed head, and her lips moved in prayer.
“Make way for the bier!” Gerson Brandt said. Diedrich Werther and his three companions lifted the bier, and slowly started down the grassy aisle. When Walda would have followed, one of the most turbulent of the colonists roughly shoved her back. Gerson Brandt threw out his arm with a protecting gesture, and in the surging of the crowd Walda was pressed close to him. His arms folded about her, and for one moment he felt her heart beating upon his. In that moment the fires of life that had long smouldered in him flamed up and illuminated his soul. In that moment came to him the knowledge that he, the elder of Zanah, had long been possessed of the earthly love against which he had preached so many years. For a few seconds the golden autumn day faded from his sight. He passed into a new existence. His divinity was unveiled to him. When the mist before his eyes cleared away he looked into Walda’s face, and, still clasping her close to his breast, said:
“Canst thou forgive me for mine anger, which hath brought upon thee much unnecessary trouble this day? Until this moment I have been blinded. I have done thee and him whom thou lovest a grievous wrong.”
“Thy provocation hath been great,” Walda answered. “Yet there is resentment in my heart since thou hast caused Stephen Everett to be bound.”